That idea that his wife's maiden name was Elizabeth Sampson is from Jim White. I'm pretty sure it's another one of his inventions. Jim had (has? no idea if he's still alive) a particular mania for making sure women had maiden surnames attached, even if there was absolutely no evidence of any kind for it. If you look through the book with that in mind, you will be struck by the fact that he seldom has a woman with "maiden name unknown" If he couldn't find anything, he would just make it up. He liked to put them into notable families with existing genealogies .I'm not sure why he was so dead set against the idea of her being a Cooke. Sure, the evidence for it is is flimsy at best, but at the same time, it doesn't seem terribly unlikely. Richard's family were certainly thick with the Cookes, so there's nothing implausible about it.
